TtSGCatSGO/No Harbor
Til the Sun Grows Cold and the Stars Grow Old by LadyNorbert Chapter Three: No Harbor in a Royal Heart ---- Ilia was very angry with me. I certainly didn't mean for any harm to come to Epona. We'd been in a bit of a hurry; the goats had to be stabled before I could deliver Rusl's gifts to the castle, and I simply hadn't noticed the little nick she'd taken to one leg. She offered no complaints about it, at least. But sharp-eyed Ilia had seen it and given me a good scolding. Her father had been on the receiving end, too, when he attempted to defend me. Fortunately, Colin was willing to intervene on my behalf. By the time I reached the spirit spring, he had told Ilia all about my previous night's adventures with Talo and the monkey. It seemed to soften her opinion of me, and she sighed as she looked at Epona. "You still prefer your master to me, don't you," she mused. Looking back at me, she adopted a serious tone. "Fortunately," she said, "it looks like the injury isn't too serious. You two can go on together. But, Link...can you at least promise me this? No matter what happens on your journey, don't try to do anything, um, out of your league. Please. Just come home safely." Her gaze had grown soft. I gave her a small half-smile, feeling slightly awkward. I did love her in my way; she was my closest friend, and if it weren't for the dreams I probably could have been very happy to make her my wife. But it was difficult to look into Ilia's eyes, warm and brimming with affection, and not feel a twinge of regret when I thought of the eyes of my dream princess, filled with an ancient longing and a wisdom that defied comprehension. Before I could speak, however, Colin gave a cry of horror, and Epona screamed and fled the spring. The sky overhead seemed to be peeling back from itself, revealing a swirling vortex of black. Hideous creatures fell through this gap and landed on the ground before us. I moved to defend my friends, though even as I did I wondered what earthly good a slingshot was going to be against these monstrosities. As it turned out...none at all. Before I could so much as pull the slingshot from my belt, one of the beasts had thrown me to the ground, and I knew no more. ---- The King is missing. He has gone to meet with Duke Onkled, but never reached his destination. I set out to rescue him, at his daughter's behest, but...something happens to me. I do not understand what is happening or where I am. I have simply vanished. Suddenly I am struck with, of all things, a hand mirror. As the glass shatters, it feels as though I am awakened from a deep slumber. Later, Zelda explains that I disappeared; some evil magic rendered me invisible. She has had to do it all herself -- combat our enemy, rescue her father, and by a lucky chance, restore me to my solid form. I am immensely proud of her. By the use of a magic relic called the Wand of Gamelon, she has sealed her father's captor inside of a magic book. It will not hold him forever; we know this. Our time has not yet come. But it will contain him for a while. The King wonders what is for dinner. ---- Well, that was...interesting, I thought dazedly as I woke. As the dreams went, it seemed somehow very anti-climactic. Not that I doubted Zelda's courage or strength; I knew full well that she was as capable of heroics as I was, possibly even moreso with her advanced wisdom. But there was something about the whole thing which felt decidedly off-balance, even false. Thinking a little more, I shook my head. That one was not a memory; it was merely a dream, and a rather silly one. And then I remembered. Colin and Ilia -- the invading monsters -- I had to find them. I was lying in the shallow waters of the spirit spring, but when my memory returned I jerked into a standing position, and gave myself a shake. Weighted down by waterlogged garments, I ran through the gate and looked about wildly. The bridge leading toward the forest temple had vanished; it was replaced with a great, alarming wall of the same glaring blackness as we had seen in the hole in the sky. I regretted having given my wooden sword to Talo; it wasn't much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing, and I felt very weak as I approached the wall with nothing more than a slingshot in my hand. In the end, I needn't have worried myself on that score. I didn't even have time to scream as a giant astral hand burst out of the wall and wrapped its bony fingers around me. It yanked me into the black, and nothingness claimed my senses once again. ---- The Great Palace of Hyrule was hidden, Impa has told me, by the powerful, wise, and courageous King who once ruled over all the land. He bore the entire Triforce, but knew that his son, the Crown Prince, was not able to carry its entire burden. So before his death, he fractured the triangle and concealed part of it in the Great Palace. He imparted the secret of its location only to his daughter, Princess Zelda, and counseled her to speak of it to no one, most particularly her brother. When she refused again and again to divulge the secret, the court wizard trapped her in an endless sleep. Her grieving brother bore her to rest in the tower of North Castle, and there she slumbers still. That no one might forget what befell her, he decreed that all royal daughters should henceforth be named Zelda, and thus the tradition continues. On Impa's command, I have departed from the Zelda I know -- my beloved, the one for whom I assembled the eight scattered fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom and defeated the monster who held her prisoner. I have traveled to six different palaces throughout the kingdom and battled the creatures inside, guardians commissioned by that long-ago King to stand watch, waiting for the Hero of Ages who could alone defeat them. I have placed a crystal into the forehead of a giant statue inside each palace, and with the placement of the sixth, the Great Palace's location unveils itself to me. It is a perilous journey. The servants of my defeated nemesis await me around every corner, for they believe that only by spilling my blood on his ashes can they restore him to his former power. But at last I enter the palace and fight my way to its center. The furious Thunderbird is a powerful enemy, but the blade in my hands is sure and true and my sword stroke is powerful. The bird is felled. I pass its reeking corpse and enter the last antechamber, the hiding place of the Triforce of Courage. I cannot take it yet, however, for another enemy presents himself. The light in the room flares repeatedly in muted colors, pink and green and blue, and now my shadow has taken on a life of its own. I am facing my own dark self, a challenge for which I am not certain I am prepared. My shadow self knows all of my strategies, my sword thrusts, my dodges. It is not unlike sparring with a mirror, except no mirror has ever, to my knowledge, tried to kill me. How I overcome him, I am uncertain. But suddenly, with one final sword thrust, he bursts into a bright flame and vanishes. The way forward opens once again, and the golden triangle is in my hands, in my heart. The triple image on my hand burns -- not painfully, but vividly, as though rejoicing at having been reunited with that part of the Triforce which is a part of myself. As the brightness subsides, I am again in the North Castle, facing the dais which supports the Princess's bed, and I watch as she rises and descends to where I stand. For someone who has slept for at least a century, she appears curiously unsurprised by the events. "My father foretold of your coming," says she. "He promised that if I kept his secret, the one who was to come would see to it that I was saved from whatever happened as a result of my silence. And now you are here, and you have the Triforce of Courage that you were destined to bear. You saved Hyrule, and you are a real hero." She moves forward then, and kisses me gently. It is a strange kiss; I am sure that the touch of her lips against my cheek should send the fire of life coursing through me. I should grow warm, flush with pleasure. But I remain cool and polite, smiling benignly as she steps back. The slight weight of the Triforce seems to pulsate gently within me, the birthmark on my hand throbbing. "I thank Your Highness." Only now do her eyes betray a flash of surprise. Clearly she expects more of a reaction from me. Perhaps another warrior would drop to his knees before her, ask for the favor of her hand. Perhaps this is what she anticipates, even wants, and I feel the smallest pang of regret as I look at her. She is lovely and graceful and kind, brave and patient and self-sacrificing. She is, after all, Zelda. But she is not '''my' Zelda.'' ---- Well, that made more sense...I think... I groaned, lifting my head slowly. Everything felt so strange. I wasn't on the ground anymore, but lay sprawled on cold stone. The pads of my paws were recoiling slightly from the almost icy texture. The pads of my paws?! Yelping, I leapt to my feet, and turned around several times. I'd been transformed -- no longer Hylian! I was a shaggy black wolf. Strange magic was at work here. In hindsight, I suppose I handled the discovery with relative calm, but at the time I felt panicked. This feeling did not improve when I realized I was shackled to the floor by one leg. Then there was a giggle. "I found you! Well, aren't you scary!" I whipped around and saw what could only be described as an orange-haired imp, grinning toothily at me through the bars of my prison cell. She -- the voice was decidedly female -- wore an odd headdress, but was otherwise nude. Wolf instincts came to me and I lowered the front half of my body, growling. "Are you sure you want to be doing that? Snarling and growling at me?" In a twinkling she had darted through the cell bars; she seemed to disintegrate and reform at will. "Well, that's too bad. I was planning on helping you, if you were nice." Helping me? This sounded vaguely promising. At least I could listen to what she had to say. I grew quiet, which pleased her enough that she broke the chain that bound me to the floor. Darting back into the corridor, she issued a taunting promise. "If you can get over here, maybe I'll tell you where we are." It took some doing, but I finally found a bit of a gap beneath the cell bars, and tunneled my way to her side. She congratulated me on being "not completely stupid," then hopped onto my back. "Listen, I like you," she said casually, "so I think I'll get you out of here. But in exchange for my help, you have to do exactly as I say!" I didn't really have much of a choice, so I started sniffing around and exploring the area. We seemed to be in a sewer system of some kind; fleetingly I was reminded of the dream from two nights previous, when I had helped Zelda escape through the sewers beneath Hyrule Castle. The wolf senses lent themselves to some strange discoveries, as I was able to overhear the commentary of what seemed to be spirits. Who were these soldiers? Did they die? How? The imp guided me up to a window that led out to a roof. "Look, there's someone I want to introduce you to," she said, "but I'll need you to go to that tower to do it!" I hesitated on the windowsill, rain pelting my face as another vision swam over me. ---- The forest, impossible as it seems right now, is still golden-green with sunlight. She is there, and I can almost feel the sadness radiating from her. I move to kneel on the ground at her feet, looking up into her lovely face; her eyes illuminate her sorrow. "What is it, my lady?" She sighs. "Darkness comes," she says. "I know it must be, in order for our fight to begin anew, but...it always grieves me so. The people suffer greatly." "Zelda." It is the first time I have ever spoken her name in the dream-world. "I do not understand, my lady...the dreams that plague me...how can these things be real? How can they have happened?" "They all happened," she says, her voice sad and musical. "But the world does not remember them all. Many years ago, when our fates were first entwined, there was a breaking of time known as the Great Cataclysm. Reality was split in different directions. Some of the things which you and I remember are things which happened to us in another reality. The people of this world never experienced them, but we did, and we know they are true." "And what of this darkness that envelops us?" "You will find me soon. Then you will know all that I know." ---- "Wake up!" cried the imp. "Goodness. Are you sleeping where you stand? I need you to get to that tower." Another spirit cowered on the rooftop, and I listened to him lamenting. "Look at our poor Hyrule Castle," he said, apparently speaking to one of his fellows whom I could not see. Shocked, I gave a small whine. "Oh, have you figured it out?" asked my companion. "Good. Let's keep moving." The route to the tower was fraught with danger; large birds (almost like the Firebird from the Great Palace) kept dive-bombing us, trying to knock me off the roof entirely. The wolf form didn't rob me of all of my fighting skills, however, and I managed to dispatch two of them before making a heroic leap through the window of the tower. At the imp's urging, I jogged up the stairs to the topmost room. A fire crackled in the hearth, which surprised me. A bed, stark and empty but for a single blanket, stood in one corner. I looked around, sniffling warily, and turned my attention toward the window. The figure who stood there was cloaked in black, and stared morosely out at the rain. Impulsively I growled, which made the imp laugh. Then the figure turned, and I fell instantly silent. "Midna?" asked a soft voice. The imp tittered again. "You remember my name? What an honor for me!" "So this is the one for whom you were searching." Dark eyes fell on the cuff and broken chain which still gripped my foreleg. "You were imprisoned? I am sorry." At the urging of the one called Midna, the cloaked figure began to speak, explaining about the Twilight King Zant and how he had stormed the palace, demanding Princess Zelda's surrender in exchange for the lives of her people. She hardly had need to speak, however, for her mind seemed to reach out to mine, and I saw the whole thing as clearly as if I had been present. I saw the slim rapier fall from my beloved princess's hand as she sacrificed everything to save the people of Hyrule. I longed to go and put my long nose into her hands, to try and extend to her some comfort, but I did not quite dare. "The people live, unaware that they have passed into beings of shadow. The kingdom succumbed to twilight, but I remain its princess." She lifted her elegant hands and pushed back the cowl of her black robe. Zelda. Some part of my mind had known her from the instant I saw the defeated slump in her shoulders. My princess, my angel of wisdom, my dream love. Did she know me in this form? Surely she must. Did she remember me, did she still love me? There was, of course, no time for such questions even if I could have put them into words. "The shadow beasts have been searching for you," Zelda told Midna. "You must go -- quickly, before the guard comes." She cast one last hopeful look at me before I bounded out of the room. We raced down the stairs to the open window and back out into the rain. Midna had a little proposition for me. She knew I was worried about Colin and Ilia, though how she knew that I really had no idea. "Do you want to save them? Well, in that case, little Midna would be happy to help you!" she cried. "But...well, you'd have to be my servant, and like a servant you'd have to do exactly what I say! Why don't you go back, take a little time, and give it some thought." Abruptly, the castle rooftop disappeared and was replaced by the welcome sight of Ordon Spring. I was home...but not whole. "Oh, that's right," said Midna languidly, "I forgot to mention one thing. Though you may have left the darkened realm, you haven't transformed back into your former self...and you won't anytime soon! See you later!" She giggled again, and vanished. With a lupine groan, I stretched out on the ground for a few moments' rest. ---- It is a lengthy and difficult battle. The conjoined witch Twinrova -- really the sisters Koume and Kotate -- abducted Princess Zelda for a ritual sacrifice designed to resurrect their adopted son, the lord of evil. I disrupt the ritual and save my pure-hearted princess, so the desperate witches sacrifice themselves. As their hearts are impure, their "son" returns not as a worthy opponent but a sadistic, mindless killing machine. The dance of battle seems to go on forever, but at last my enemy is struck down and does not rise again. As we watch, his body seems to disintegrate into ashes. "Is it done?" Zelda wonders. "It seems to be...Farore knows, my aim was true with the killing-stroke," I say. "Certainly he has gone." "Do you think..." She seems fearful in her hope. "Do you think...it's our time, now?" I sheathe the sword and put my shield to one side. "I don't want to wait any longer, my Princess." "Nor I." I extend my hands to her, and she moves forward, taking them in her own. "My Hero of Ages." Smiling at that, I bend my head to kiss her. Our faces draw close; I feel her breath brushing my lips, see her eyes closing. My own slip shut once I am sure of my target. The kiss is barely begun when she gives a cry of pain. My eyes fly open, and I catch her as her knees buckle. Protruding from her side is an arrow; her pristine white gown is turning scarlet fast, and already she stiffens in my arms. There is a cackle, and I look up in time to see a shadow bound away from the open window. "Poisoned," she hisses. "It was a minion...one of them must have survived. Someone!" I shout. "Call for the physician! The Princess is injured!" "It's too late, Link." She sinks in my embrace, and I ease her to the floor. "I'm sorry." "No. I can't lose you, not now...please, Zelda, hold on." She gazes up at me, her face pale, her smile weak. "Find me again," she implores, even as the light fades from her glittering eyes. She sags against me, the last breath escaping her lips and dusting my throat in a faint farewell. I swallow a scream of anguish and clutch her to my breast, weeping into her bright hair.